Two Burning Questions

Ragone on the Run




Is Billy Ragone a Good Passer?


A lot of Penn fans are getting excited about what could be a real resurgence in the Quaker passing game this fall.

They're clucking because of returning talents like WR's Ryan Mitchell and Conner Scott, (Scott missed all of 2011 due to an injury, but looked promising as a frosh in 2010). And they're really excited by incoming freshmen WR Cameron Countryman, the speed demon who is the consensus top recruit for the Ivies in the class of 2016.

Penn has been hurting for a better passing attack for about 8 years now. The team that racked up almost 2,700 passing yards in 2003 fell all the way down to just over 1,400 in 2010. Of course, no one really cared about that in Philadelphia because the Quakers won the Ivy title that year. And in 2009, when the team had just over 1,600 yards passing, they won the championship too. 

But as the dominant offensive line Penn enjoyed from 2008-10 started to thin out, passing became more of an imperative in 2011. The Quakers responded with a decent 2,000 yard passing season last fall. 

Now, Al Bagnoli and company want to take the next step and they feel they can with what is arguably the best receiving corps in the Ivies. 

Excuse me for stating the obvious here, but none of those receivers is going to make much of a difference without a good passing QB to get them the ball. 

So is Billy Ragone a good passing QB?

It's an open question mostly because of his performance last season, especially in the final two games of the season. 

Against Harvard in week 9, he was 16 of 32 for just 190 yards, but he did have two TD passes to just one INT in the 37-20 loss.

A week later in the 48-38 shootout loss to Cornell at home, he passed for 253 yards but only completed about half of his passes and had two INT's to one TD pass. 

The Quaker offense relied mostly on the run and rarely had Ragone throwing the long ball. His longest completion of the year was 54 yards. Even though Ragone's throws were almost all high-percentage short tosses he completed fewer than 58% of his passes. He also had the same number of TD passes as INT's with 11.

The Penn running game may fall even further off its recent highs this fall thanks to some real questions about the Quaker offensive line. For the first time in many years, the Quakers are not returning a single O-linemen who made the All Ivy 1st or 2nd team. Senior Joe Bonadies is the best returning O-lineman and he only made Honorable Mention All Ivy. 

So receivers aside, Penn probably needs more passing output this year to compete for the title. 

So if you're a Penn fan having to rely on Billy Ragone, do you feel lucky? 

Whose Got the Weakest Offensive Line?

Let me preemptively insist that just about every pundit will proclaim Columbia's offensive line the weakest or at least the most questionable in the Ivies going into the 2012 season.

It makes sense on some levels, especially since the Lions have lost NFL signee Jeff Adams and another top notch player on Bob Hauschildt to graduation.

But at least Columbia has senior Scott Ward, a standout starter since his sophomore year and a 2011 All Ivy Honorable Mention, returning along with a large number of players who got serious playing time last season either as starters or backups.

Compare that to teams like Yale, with NO returning All Ivy offensive linemen but plenty of questions to answer as the Elis will almost surely need to improve pass protection with the graduation of quick release passer Patrick Witt, (I say "graduation" but I don't believe Witt has actually earned his diploma). 

Princeton has no returning All Ivy O-linemen either, and the Tigers are looking at a season where they will have to protect and poke holes for a new starting QB and RB.

And Dartmouth also has no returning All Ivy players on its front five, and it's losses to graduation, (Ryan O'Neil, Austen Fletcher and Kyle Cook were all All Ivies and they're all gone now). 

The bottom line is there is really a league-wide question mark about offensive line play, one that will be mostly projected onto Columbia but will be no less true for Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and even Penn.